Here, you are urged and encouraged to run your mouths about something important.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Are Fort Hood survivors 'Swiftboating' Obama?

The survivors of Nidal Malik Hasan's jihadist attack are fed up, as they should be. They're tired of watching their country's leaders tell the world that Hasan's rampage was 'workplace violence'. In essence, a blatantly false motive has been attributed to someone who murdered people who were serving their country. The same dynamic has been at work over the Benghazi attack. As the Obama administration continues to waffle on who / what was behind the attack, it tried to blame a video for motivating those who murdered people who were serving their country.

In 2004, veterans who served with John Kerry called his service and his purple hearts into question. In 2012, the victims of an act of war still don't have purple hearts because Hasan hasn't been identified for what he is - a domestic enemy who infiltrated the U.S. Army.

Benghazi isn't the first time the Obama administration has struggled with whether to call an attack on a U.S. post a terrorist attack. Nearly three years after the fact, the Defense Department still calls the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, an act of workplace violence, despite the suspect's ties to al Qaeda.

A coalition of 160 victims and family members of the deadly rampage at Fort Hood in 2009 sees similarities in the Obama administration's reluctance to label the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya as a terrorist act and wants government officials to belatedly deem the assault in Texas as terrorism as they now have done with Benghazi.

"To have it not be called terrorism is a slap in the face," said Shawn Manning, who was facing his third deployment the day authorities say Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan shot him six times.

The assault on the army post in Killeen, Texas, was the most lethal terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, leaving 13 dead, more than 30 wounded by gunshots and dozens more injured. Survivors, many who suffered from multiple bullet wounds, have spent the past three years trying to rehabilitate their bodies and rebuild their lives. Maj. Hasan, 42, is awaiting trial and faces the death penalty if convicted.

For the service members who died and those who were wounded, the terrorism distinction would mean that the military considered that their injuries took place in a combat zone, making them eligible for Purple Heart medals and access to medical care and benefits similar to what soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan receive.

Civilian victims, such as Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer employed by the Army who shot Maj. Hasan four times and is credited with bringing him down and helping prevent a bigger massacre, aren't eligible for Purple Hearts. But Mrs. Munley said the designation would recognize the severity of the attack and provide her and others with much-needed closure.

"To be honest with you, it would just help everyone, including me, start to be able to have closure and start to heal," she said. "To this day, mentally and emotionally, I don't think any of us have started to heal."

The Times report above refers to "13 dead". Perhaps as a consequence of the culture we have allowed to exist for far too long in this country, the number of dead is rarely reported accurately. Francheska Velez was one of those murdered... and she was pregnant. The correct number is 14.

In this incredibly well-done video, the survivors of the attack speak out against those who refuse to identify Hasan for what he is and his act as what it was - an act of war.

At one point in this video, though Velez's name is not mentioned, one of the survivors describes finding her laying on the floor, crying 'my baby, my baby'.